Maybe We're Just Different Breeds
by exjordanaire88
Summary: "You should wear those red panties again so I can rip them off of you. *wink*  " The text message hit Leon like a wrecking ball directly to the chest. He couldn't breathe. He was in pain and confused. How could Claire do this to him? Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1: Let It Out

Leon Kennedy was a strong man, more so than he normally liked to admit. He had held dying men in his arms, watching the life leak from them like a sieve, their eyes becoming dull and meaningless. Yet with their last breathes, something sparked, as if their life was trying to crawl back inside their brains, and screamed from the glassy orbs that stared directly at him, before vanishing. They were gone. Only not for long.

He had seen with his own eyes what he had only watched in old Horror movies. Staying up late, after his parents snored upstairs, to watch George Romero's _Night of the Living Dead_. His wide eyes did not move from the screen as he laid eyes on the pale skinned man limping and stumbling through the graveyard. The blank, vacant stare as it made it's way towards Barbra and her gawky brother, Johnny, as he had taunted her maliciously, "They're coming to get you Barbra!"

As a young boy he remembered the fear he felt. The elderly man said not a word as he grapples Johnny in a persistent, deliberate, and forceful manner. Cold eyes stared out in the distance as his attentions appeared manic. Young Leon had trouble sleeping that night, making sure his bedroom and closet doors were shut firmly. He pulled the covers up to his chin, a child's safety net, and closed his eyes tightly. Yet the images of the flesh-hungry monsters infested his mind. The wind outside toyed with his imagination, leaving him at edge. Surely, he wouldn't sleep tonight. But exhaustion eventually cut the strings of tension and he drifted away.

Over ten years later, he had never imagined seeing it for himself. No matter how many movies he had watched about the Undead, despite his parents approval, nothing prepared him for the real thing. Seeing a dead man begin to blink, his fingers twitching and the low groan that rattles through their throat and send shivers into his spine. The eyes never lose their vacant appearance. As the body becomes animated once more, their dilated eyes remain just as dead as their bodies once were only hours before. He had watched a man literally rise from the dead, standing wobbly on his own two feet. Slowly, with stiff-limbs, the man began to shuffle towards him.

Although the undead man was motivated by core survival, so was Leon. It didn't take but a split second of thinking to remove his never-used .22 from it's holster and raise the barrel between the man's boring eyes, splattering thick blood, brain tissue and skull fragments across the file cabinet behind him. The man's knees buckled and his body collapsed on the tile at Leon's feet. Blood began to pool around his head as the body continued to jerk and twitch. To be safe, Leon sent another round into his head, eye matter and blood spraying across his boots.

It wouldn't be the last being he would kill. After thirty, he began to lose count. His uniform was stained with the blood of innocent people that had fell victim to a virus. Sick people. Flesh-eating walkers. Years after, while subjected to his own thoughts, as their faces never left his memory, he thought of their lives before. They had been normal, every day people. People who had been eaten alive. Possibly a bag boy for a local Grocery Store, a Student working steadily to become a Pharmacist, the town drunk; it no longer mattered. They all became one, hungry, killing mass. It would take years of therapy to make Leon finally come to the understanding that Umbrella had killed these people, not his own hands. If anything, Claire had told him multiple times, we saved them, we put them at rest. Leon believed she was convincing herself as well.

Claire. The woman who escaped Hell with him. The one he held as they cried tears of joy as they were driven away from Raccoon City. He had fell in love with her. The young redhead with big, blue eyes that sparkled with spunk. They went through their coping together, having each other to lean on. To talk to one another on sleepless nights when, instead of rest, memories haunted their sleep. They worked together to fuse back into a normal existence and to live freely.

Three years after that Summer's night, they were to marry. The planned it for the Fall since Claire wanted to have an outside wedding and weather would be best then. They invited close friends and relatives. Claire's brother, Chris, stood at Leon's side as Best Man. Leon had stood on the platform with his clammy hands laced together, to keep them from shaking as best as he could. As if Chris scenced his nervousness, he leaned over and patted Leon's shoulder. The firm hand on his shoulder reminded him to breathe and he glanced over at his soon-to-be brother-in-law and gave him a thin smile as if to say, _"I'm okay. I'm not going to faint or toss my cookies all over your shoes. I promise."_

Sherry, along with Claire's niece Michelle, were the first to appear. They wore quiet pink sundresses with their hair pinned back with small flowers and carried straw baskets in their hands that almost overflowed with white and red rose pedals. With their small hands, they graciously filled the isle between the chairs with the pedals, twirling and resting on the dewy grass. Selected members of the crowd awed and began snapping pictures, the clicking sounds of busy cameras manic to freeze the memories of that day.

The music started and Leon swallowed the snowball that was growing in his throat. He never understood why marriage had been such a scary thing to most people. He did now. As the piano's delighted keys danced through the air, it hit him like a brick wall. Their lives would now, legally, be fused as one. She would bare his last name. They would promise each other, till death do they part, that they would stay loyal and together. The thought scared him. Would he be a good husband? Would he make her happy? With the grace of God, he would hopefully see another 50 years before they pitched the first shovel of dirt on his closed coffin. Would he be able to satisfy her till they grew old, grey and wrinkly together? He was beginning to feel sick again.

Then he saw her. The tension in his body released as he laid eyes on her. Claire wore a simple, white sundress and white flats. A headband of lilies hugged across her thick, auburn hair that laid flat against her shoulders, the white veil covering her nervous smile. In her hands was an assortment of flowers and she held close to her body, her arm locked with her Father's. Later that night, as they danced, she admitted how awkward she felt wearing a dress. Admittedly, their wedding day is one of the only times Leon had seen her in a dress. The other time having been for a formal Police Ball they had attended. A plain but exotic black dress that seemed to had been painted onto Claire's curves. _"Although,"_ ,she whispered in his ear, her arms draped across his shoulders, _"you look so damn handsome in this tuxedo. As soon as I saw you I just wanted to take you away somewhere private and tear it off of you." _Leon grinned, pulling Claire close to him, feeling a stir in his pelvic region as she never ceased to amaze him with her blunt, out-spoken ways.

Their wedding day had been a staple of Leon's recovery to a normal, happy life. Their smiles were fruitful and genuine, the happiness glittering in both their eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so alive other than leaving Raccoon City. But this was a different high. Mrs. Leon Kennedy sat beside him as they indulged in conversation with Chris, who was steadily visiting the open bar and making the newly wed couple laugh until the muscles in their stomach ached from constricting. He had became the life of the party but remained from becoming deliberately obnoxious.

After the wedding had died down and everyone had gifted them with their best wishes and various house gifts, (a Mr. Coffee expresso maker, various Yankee candles, _Wedding Memory_ picture frames, heated towel racks with plush towels and his and her robes, a few bottles of wine, a gracious amount of cash and a "newly wed naughty game" from Chris) the couple packed everything away in their Nissan and traveled back home.

When they made it to the door, Leon paused and looked at Claire as he cracked open the door.

"I have to keep tradition." Is all he said before picking up Claire into his arms and cradling her body. She giggled and kicked her feet playfully, wrapping her arms around his neck. They were both intoxicated on alcohol and the feeling of absolute bliss. He carried her inside and walked her to the counter top and sit her up on top.

She kept her arms around him, both smiling as they looked at one another.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Kennedy." Leon's smile widened as he addressed his wife.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Kennedy." Her arms grazed down his shoulder till her palms rested on either side of his clean-shaven face, leaning down and pressing a firm yet soft kiss against her husband's bottom lip. Leon's eyes closed halfway as he returned the kiss, his finger tips tracing up her outer thighs.

Claire pulled back enough to whisper, "Now, let's get you out of this tuxedo."

Leon's arousal returned from earlier in the night but this time he let it take over. His strong hands wrapped around Claire's lower back and pulled her off the counter, her legs wrapping around his waist.

It was that night that they conceived their first and only child, Taylor Kennedy. He was born on the hottest day of the Summer that year. The doctors had quickly wheeled Claire into the delivery room as she huffed and puffed, screaming obscenities that could be heard by everyone on the same floor. Leon quickly followed behind, trying to reassure his wife.

"Babe, just breathe." He said nervously.

She cut her blue eyes at him, sweat beading at her forehead.

"You -" A contraction cut her off and she groaned in pain, gripping the arms of the wheelchair and pushing herself up some as her face contorted. It released long enough for her to finish, "You shut the _fuck up_! You don't have a baby trying to push it's way through your _fucking_ _dick!_ So just, SHUT UP!"

Five hours later that night, Claire had apologized for her slur of insults as she laid in the hospital bed, cradling their newborn son in her arms. Leon reassured her no offense was taken as he gazed down at his first born son. The small, pink infant was sleeping soundly. He had been frightened and worried about becoming a father, much more than he had about becoming a husband. Yet as soon as he saw Taylor, the delicate features of both him and Claire apparent in his rounded face, he knew at that moment he would do his damn best to become a great father. He _would_ be a fan-fucking-tastic Dad.

Taylor was seven now. A lanky kid with a bushel of auburn hair like his mom and oval, blue eyes. He was a smart kid with many interests. They had both made sure that Taylor would not succumb to the life of entertainment and technology and kept him active by enrolling him in Baseball and taking many weekend trips hiking, canoeing and, with much convincing on Leon's part, to the shooting range with Dad.

Taylor made him forget about his past. Claire made him remember his past as if, by her being in his life, said, "See? Good things can come from the bad." He was a happy husband and father. His life felt complete.

Now, as he drove away from his home, anger deep in his bones, he felt as if he had left pieces behind. Feeling broken and battered by Claire. _How the fuck could she do this? WHY would she do this?_ Many questions attacked his mind but those repeated over and over and over, continuously pounding hard. He couldn't see as he drove with blind anger and decided to pull over.

He shut the engine off and the world fell silent around him. He inhaled deeply, the smell of Claire's perfume lingering in the cab of his truck, and he snorted - almost as if to push her scent out and away from him. He needed to think clearly but rage left him dumbfounded.

Leon was a strong man. He had seen and dealt with more than just every day annoyances. But this. . .

This left him weak.

This left him vulnerable.

He thought of his Claire. Her naked body sweating and twisting in pleasure, the moans of ecstasy that he had believed he had only known.

Now he was aware.

Now he knew.

Thoughts of a shadow man laying over his wife, his cock pounding inside of Claire, thrusting his vial into the mother of his child. Leon's lips twitched into a snarl, his stomach turning as images mocked his unstable mind, the shadow man continually pumping away, infecting his sacred wife with his disease. He felt dirty, having now known he had been inside of her only hours later.

The thought surged his rage and as if it had short-circuited him, Leon's fist curled and over and over and over he slammed his knuckles against the steering wheel, screaming. Thankfully, his windows were rolled up tight but at that point he could give two shits less. If he had caught an on looker gawking at his fit of rage, he would have felt the need to shout, "What the fuck are you staring at? Be glad your wife isn't a _cheating whore! _ Be _really_ fucking happy you aren't the scum _fucking_ my wife!" There was no pain. His adrenaline numbed his hand which was now red and pounding. He eventually stopped and gripped the wheel with both hands, pushing and pulling as if he would eventually tear it right off it's barring.

As if he had shouted and punched all the aggression out of him, his body fell limp. His breathing was heavy and shallow, his eyes gazed out the window as his stare traveled over the belt of pine trees in the horizon. For that moment it was as if his brain had shut off. He only focused on his breathing. Sooner than appreciated, his mind clicked back on, as if the gears had jammed only for a second, and began turning again.

His thoughts turned spiteful. Maybe he would beat Claire to Taylor's school and take him away and stay at a Hotel. She didn't deserve to have him, either of them. But he wasn't mad at Taylor and knew his son would be frightened by his sudden actions. He would have to explain why they were leaving - something he couldn't bare to imagine telling his son.

Perhaps he would hop through the bars, find the pick of the litter, and take her to a Hotel instead. Fuck his aggression out on a strange, pretty face. No, he couldn't hack himself down to Claire's level. He took pride in being above her at the moment.

Leon swallowed hard and let go of the steering wheel, his hands falling into his lap. His thoughts resorted in falling back into the same two question.

_How could she do this?_

_Why would she do this?_

The anger began to manifest and alter, and he felt his heart beat speed up. Leon bit down on his quivering lip, his thick lips pooching, like Taylor's had when he didn't get his way and began crying. His eyebrows scrunched together as his eyes continued to stare off into the distance yet he did not register anything he saw.

He only thought of her.

Now there was sound piercing through the silence. At first he didn't know what it was. It came to him in a moment. It was whimpering. The sound of an animal with a smashed foot. Still looking out the window, he saw cars come and go, through a film of tears.

How long had it been since he had cried? He cried when they escaped Raccoon City, but those had been of pure joy. He had cried the night Taylor was born, but that had been of relief. He had cried when his dad died after fighting grimly for his life for nine days after a massive heart attack struck him, and those tears, shed at sixteen, had been like these, burning, not wanting to come; it was more like bleeding than crying. But at sixteen it was easier to cry, easier to bleed. When you were sixteen you still expected to have to do your share of both.

He stopped whimpering. He thought it was done. And the a low cry came out of him, a harsh, wavering sound, and he thought: _Was that me? God, was it me that made that sound?_

The tears began to slide down his cheeks. There was another harsh sound, then another. He gripped the steering wheel once more and cried.


	2. Chapter 2: Cheating Gets It Faster

An hour later Leon was sitting at the park five miles from his home. He had called Claire and told her he wouldn't be home till late. It was evident in her voice that she wanted to talk, somehow explain her actions but he prevented her from lingering on it. He told her to go ahead and feed Taylor, tell him Dad was working late. She meekly agreed, her voice unsteady as she forced back tears. He hung up without saying goodbye.

Now he was sitting at the park.

The tears had burned off most of the fear. What was left was the ugly face of anger. Anger wasn't appropriate for what boiled inside him. He was enraged. Infuriated. It was as if he had been hit directly in the chest with a wrecking ball. He recognized that it would be dangerous if he were to return home right away. . dangerous for all three of them.

It would be so pleasurable to hide the wreckage by creating more. It would be, let's face it, mindlessly pleasurable to punch her cheating face in.

He was sitting by the pond. His eyes scanned over the flat surface of the water, rays of sunlight glistening across the gentle waves, adding depth to the water. Along the opposite side of the pond was a group of kids playing hackie sack. Teenagers, barely in High School, three boys and two girls. They huddled in a circle as they used their feet to tap the bean-filled sack across to each other, sometimes misjudging their hit when surprised, sending the sack soaring away from the circle and plopping into the grass. One would break the circle and snatch it up, tossing it back to the circle and someone's foot would begin the action of seeing how long they could keep the thing up in the air.

Their game kept his mind from the images he saw but not for long. He couldn't help punishing himself with images that provoked his anger. It was an annoyance he couldn't ditch. Over and over, he saw them fucking in his and Claire's bedroom. Fucking in _their_ bed. What he kept picturing in his mind was every bit as explicit and of the same crude quality of porno movies he had seen online, stroking himself raw as a teenager. She was groaning and glistening with sweet, beautiful. Every muscle pulled tight. Her eyes had that hungry look they got when the sex was good, her blue eyes darkening. He knew the expression, he knew the posture, he knew the sounds. He thought, _thought_, he was the only one who knew. Not even her parents or brother would know about that.

Suspicions had been hiding under the surface for months now. Curious enough, Claire began washing the sheets more, as if it had became a ritual. She appeared more edgy, more aware and cautious. He figured since school had started again, she was merely trying to hide her worry and cure her boredom while he worked and Taylor attended school. He let it go.

He had suspected something, yes. But suspecting was not like knowing, he knew this now. He suddenly realized, in those couple of hours, the ungodly distance between suspicions and actually knowing. What you didn't know won't hurt you, right? Just as he had began to think that his suspicions were groundless and had unrooted them with a good chuckle to himself.

_Fucking bitch._

It felt a lot like swimming in deep water. If you swim out a mile deep and return to shore safely, does a man really need to know about the sharks that swam only inches under his feet? It seemed unnecessary. But this was different. In Leon's case, as he felt, he had been fed to the sharks. Cut open and tossed into the murky water, waiting to feel their sharp, edged teeth sink into his flesh. He wondered the possibility that being ate alive by sharks would be less painful than this. Hell, he was almost certain he would have rather been eaten alive ten years ago by an infected Claire than have her do this to him.

The laughter that traveled across the water caught Leon's attention once more and he saw one of the teenagers peering into the water, complaining. The hackie sack was nowhere to be seen. It was now settled at the bottom of the pond, along with plastic bottles and miscellaneous litter.

His world had been flipped upside down and shook when he saw Claire's phone sitting on the nightstand. She was upstairs in the shower, Taylor in school. Normally, he wouldn't have even the slightest want to go through her phone. Yet lately, with his stirring suspicions, he became more weary of Claire's actions, one of them being the need to carry her phone with her everywhere, not leaving it alone for the slightest amount of time. Leon believed if she could have somehow fused it to become one with her body, she would have gladly done it.

As he held it in his hands, he almost set it back down and left it be. Let lying dogs lie. Part of him wished he had but something inside him told him, "_Go ahead. Just to rest your mind._" He checked her message inbox. No texts had been deleted. Inbox/10. Sent/11. He opened the most recent message.

**J: Ok. I can't wait to see you tonight. You should wear those red panties again so I can rip them off. ;)**

The simple message hit him hard. He did not so much sit on the bed as he did collapse onto it. A small grunt escaped him, the sound of a man who suddenly lost all his wind. For a long moment he could not understand, comprehend, what he had just read.

So he read the message again.

And then again.

He ran his hand through his hair. He wouldn't bother reading anymore. Part of him couldn't bare reading the words that his wife had replied with. He closed her phone and gently set it back on the nightstand, as if it would self-destruct if placed down with too much pressure. He ran both hands through his hair. That feeling of being punched, gasping for breath, still lingering in his chest. He felt fear, pain and confusion. But of the three, the dominant feeling, was the terrible fright that chilled his skin.

He could hear the water shut off. He heard the drone of a plane and he thought, _you should wear those red panties again_. Leon knew exactly what pair of panties the anonymous letter was speaking of. J. Who the _fuck_ is J? Even the wink-face pissed him off. It made Leon feel creepy. It had stung his eyes to read it. It was like getting a splash in the eyes with a squirt gun filled with acid.

He tried hard to think coherently and

_**You should wear those red panties again**_

just couldn't

_**so I can rip them off.**_

fucking

_**;)**_

do it.

He heard the bathroom door open and Claire's light footsteps creaking the wooden stairs. Quickly, Leon reached for the phone and held it in his hands, his fingertips turning white he was holding it so tightly, as if for dear life, as if to smash the anonymous lettered man by crushing her phone with his bare hands. Leon was scared to see her. Afraid of what he would say. Afraid of what he might do.

His wife appeared in the doorway, dressed in a pair of faded Levi's and a plain black, fitted baby tee. She was so plain yet exotic in his eyes. But now, all he could see was the filth oozing off her body. No shower could clean that image from his eyes now.

Claire opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Her eyes locked onto Leon's stern expression, hurt floating in his blue eyes, and caught glimpse of his hands locked firmly around something.

It didn't take her to realize it was her phone. She knew. She knew he now knew. She had been caught red handed by her own slip up. Guilt swelled up in her body like a hot balloon.

He heard chatter again, the teenagers now sluggishly walking towards his side of the pond. He watched as they passed him and crossed over to the parking lot. Breaking his concentration, he was almost thankful they had and discouraged to see his distraction was now leaving.

He was faced with the fact that, as easy as it would be in this building anger, he could not go home and solve it by beating the shit out of Claire. Yet he still had to go home. If not to talk this over with Claire, but for Taylor. He would begin to worry and God only knew what Claire had told him. Despite his anger, he doubted very seriously that Claire would do anything to hurt Taylor. He was thankful for that.

Leon left the park sometime later, as the sun began to fall back into the horizon, and the bugs replaced the chorus of the birds as they nestled into the tall pines, falling asleep with the sun. He turned into a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes. He rode around and smoked two, or three, one after the next, until his throat burned and his mouth felt dry. It eased some of the stress that was still itching at him.

Leon's truck pulled into the driveway and Claire held the engine shut off. Taylor did as well and he jumped up from his seat on the couch and ran to the window, ripping the curtain to the side.

"Dad's home!" He exclaimed.

Claire sunk into the couch, wishing she could melt into it and disappear. But when Taylor turned to look at her, she put on the best smile she could. It almost hurt. Taylor was blissfully ignorant to his parents' ticking time bomb. She could only hope that she didn't have to watch it detonate, exploding unavoidable issues onto his pure innocence.

When she heard the car door slam shut, she winced. Already, from between the brick walls of the house, she could feel the tension brewing and creeping from the cracks and opening around the door frame. Any minute now she would have to face him. She was thankful for Taylor's company, that she could wade off the talk that would soon occur after Taylor was sent to bed; for now she could relax in this awkwardness of playing pretend for their son's mercy.


End file.
